Planning road trips

With summer coming, there will be occasional week-long periods when we won't be babysitting.  And of course, we almost always have three-day weekends without the little girl  We plan to take advantage of some of those childless times.  We happen to live in a part of the country where places of interest can be found in any direction, in a relatively short amount of time.

Next weekend we'll actually have four days in a row, and thanks to what I assumed was a miracle of good timing, I was putting Davenport, Iowa on the calendar as the place to go.  There's a Mecum tractor auction scheduled for those very days.  Cliff watches their auctions on RFDTV regularly, and has mentioned how enjoyable it would be to sit (or stand) in the same crowd where a collector like Jon Kinzenbaw is bidding.  

However, due to the fact that he went on a long journey to Indiana to buy his latest tractor purchase only three weeks ago, and then last week went to Davenport with his brother to a John Deere gathering, he has no desire to travel in that direction.  Besides, his tractor fund is so depleted that about the only thing he would be able to afford would be a rusty old Farmall H.  He says an auction isn't any fun without the possibility of buying something, and mentioned going to Branson instead.

I enjoy Branson.  But I only want to go there when I've gathered a little extra cash, because it's expensive.  We'll go later in the year.  I came up with a different plan.  

Several years ago Cliff and I went to Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves; we've always wanted to go back.  Since it takes less than six hours to get there, it seems like a nice place to visit on a four-day weekend.  Cliff agrees, even though he recalls what a boring drive it is.  So a road trip is now in the works.  

It's easy to spend an entire day at Pioneer Village.  This time of year you can always catch the Sand Hill Cranes passing through the area, too.  Although really, how long can you stand around and watch birds landing on the water?  So that won't take much of our time.  It's right on the way to our destination.

Ah, but Kearney is just thirty miles north of Minden, and I think THIS would be worth seeing:

There's also a highly rated classic car collection in Kearney, as well as a couple of other places of interest.  

Maybe we can get to our local library and find a two or three audio books to keep our minds occupied on the trip.  

There's a whole week coming up in April that Cora will be visiting her Iowa relatives.  I'm still thinking on that one.  We really want to get to Colorado again this year, but I checked their average temperatures this time of year.  We won't be going in April!  There's our train trip to the Grand Canyon coming up in May, and we want to get back to the Flint Hills of Kansas soon... we'll pay my sister a visit when that happens, since she lives nearby in McPherson.

I had been planning to buy a couple of baby chicks for Cora to enjoy, but I realized yesterday as I was looking at the sweet little Americana pullets at Feldman's that any chicks I buy would have to go on a couple of road trips with me.  So for now there will be no baby chicks.  Mama Hen won't be hatching babies this year, either, because our latest rooster decided it was fun to chase little girls.  Let's just say he died of lead poisoning.